[SIC] 168: Chupacabra Bob

November 25th, 2021

Hi all,

Happy (late) Thanksgiving to all of you in the US. I’m writing this to the shouted-through-the-floorboards tune of Kenny Rogers’s “The Gambler,” which will give you some sense of the reason for the tardiness of this week’s dispatch. Still, too much interesting stuff to miss a week, in spite of the holiday, so here’s a shorter-than-normal edition.

Thanks to Pruess, Lenski, Celeste and Iolanda for contributions this week, and thanks everybody as always for reading. Ideas / references/ sources / diversion: all welcome.

Couple things before the main attraction: in the absence of a live one, [SIC] Talks alum Brynn Wallner’s interview with Thingtesting is a predictably fun one. And the WITI contributors mega list will tide you thought-provokingly over for the long weekend, no matter how many karaoke tunes your fam presses you into service to cover.

Many thanks,

Ben

=====[SIC] 168: Chupacabra Bob=====

Dennis Hopper in “Out of the Blue”

Trends

• The post-pandemic attention recession Axios

• The case against rushing to get your holiday shopping done early / Bloomberg

• The home is the Future of Travel / The Atlantic

• HOW EMBRACING YOUR TOXICITY BECAME THE LATEST INTERNET TREND, i-d via After School

• Trump disappearing from the news has been terrible for democracy “After years of constant emergencies, it’s a relief. But it’s also breeding something weirder.” Slate via Nieman Lab

• The sex recession continues IFStudies via Marginal Revolution

• DATING BLIND BOXES TAKE OFF IN CHINA AS YOUNGER GENERATIONS LOOK FOR LOVE ON SOCIAL MEDIA, SCMP via After School

Style

• ALD’s new moodboard / Aimé Leon Dore

• Ana’s lengthy and Tashjian-ian Holiday Gift Guide (Sociology of Business) 

• Shoppers have too many clothes, which is great news for secondhand sustainability / EY via RIW

• The new luxury pop up launch playbook:/ Vogue Business

• Winning GenZ via Throwback economy / JING Daily

• The making of black Ivy Style / NYT via Lean Luxe

• In praise of the M-43 field jacket, a classic with true lasting appeal. Sprezza via Lean Luxe

The Arts 

• Revisiting the graphics of the New Wave era / 4 Columns

• Inside Spotify’s audio revolution. With 3.2 million podcasts on its platform and more monthly active users than Apple, Spotify is the new heavy in podcasting. It’s just getting started / Fast Companyvia Maekan: 

• From Iolanda Carvalho: From the Copenhagen Institute for Future Studies, an awesome - awesome - report on the future of Arts.

• From Celeste Blewitt: How A High Society Divorce Sparked The Art Auction of The Year' Town & Country

• SIC homie Thomas Murphy devotes this weeks Blood & Champagne to his favorite media sources; great design-centric list, and a bunch of cool stuff to keep busy with this weekend.  / Substack

• Corollary: Tyler Cowen’s non-fiction book list for the year / Marginal Revolution

• And here is his favorite fiction of 2021 list.  / Marginal Revolution

• How to start an art collection / Sharp Magazine via The Elevator

Entertainment + IP

• ‘Music dug up from under the earth’: how trip-hop never stopped / The Guardian via Motive Unknown 

• New York City's gaming industry has "roughly tripled in size" since 2008. / Axios

Platforms & Influencers

• WHY PIZZA HUT, EOS, JIF, AND VW ARE AMONG THE BRANDS TIKTOK CALLS ITS BIGGEST CULTURE DRIVERS, Fast Company via After School

• TikTok’s Next Big Move? To Become Facebook, Wired via Understanding TikTok

• Ways to make social media less ‘viral’ When fake news spreads like Covid, what can platforms do to stop / FT

• THE GEN Z MUSLIMS ADOPTING THE MEMES OF THE FAR RIGHT. A look inside Islamogram, an online ecosystem boosted by Gen Z Muslims and fueled by regressive far-right symbols. Mel Magazine via  After School

  

 Marketing & Advertising

• Gen Z Has $360 Billion to Spend, Trick Is Getting Them to Buy / Bloomberg

• Prada opened a boutique in Harrods’ interiors department, and is experimenting with homeware and “sophisticated accessories” Prada via RIW

• More evidence soccer and basketball fans are the same: Lebron is working with Liverpool FC / Instagram

• Burberry creates mirrored pop-up store that reflects a surrounding mountain range on Jeju Island, South Korea, for its latest outerwear clothing collection / Dezeen

Media Business

• Young people more likely to rely on social media, though few trust it 'a lot' / The Hill

• Swerve [the sports movie channel] is a bet on sports leagues moving beyond the bundle, forced by cord cutters voting with their wallets against the ever-increasing pay TV subscription prices.  / Protocol 

Metaverse & Web3

• From Ben Pruess: “www.citydao.io 🤯”

• A Beginner’s Guide to Social Tokens. Linda Xie’s "A beginner’s guide…" Covering every from social token definitions to use-cases and case studies, Linda boils down social tokens for anyone to understand.  🔥 via Forefront

• Where China’s biggest tech companies go, the market follows. Over 400 companies, including Tencent and Alibaba, have trademarked several terms related to the metaverse (such as “Ali Metaverse”). 

Food & Drink 

• France Is Freeing Fruit and Veg from Its Plastic Prison. Under a new law, a large portion of the country’s produce will no longer be sold in single-use plastic containers / Reasons to be Cheerful 

• Design is playing a critical role in rethinking food of the future / It’s Nice That

• Vegan bakers and chefs are enjoying unprecedented demand, as households prepare to cater to a growing number of vegans, vegetarians and "flexitarians," / Axios

Miscellany 

• Scientists made bacterial ink that’s alive. The toothpaste-like material reproduces itself and can be used in 3D printing.

• Wait, no “No For An Answer”?! From Matt Lenski: “I called a conservative morning show and tried to name as many punk bands as i could before they caught on. “ / Twitter 

• How Americans’ appetite for leather in luxury SUVs is accelerating Amazon deforestation. NYT via The Micromobility Newsletter 

• Wolves make roadways safer by reducing deer-vehicle collisions. Key Quote: 'For the average county, wolf entry reduced deer–vehicle collisions by 24%, yielding an economic benefit that is 63 times greater than the costs of verified wolf predation on livestock. / PNAS via Future of Transportation 

• Instead of funnelling stormwater into drains, an affordable housing complex in New York is soaking up rain with absorbable asphalt. Fast Company via Reasons to be Cheerful: 

• How do you get people to trade in their cars for e-bikes? Let them try it out for free. / Bloomberg CityLab

• The case for why the United States should just give everybody an ebike, NYT via the Micromobility Newsletter. 

• Meet the Modicum of Transport (MOT) - the horsepower of micromobility. / Micromobility

=====[SIC] 168: Chupacabra Bob=====